Sue Cottrell's Op-Ed in the Seattle Times on January 10, 2025

 On January 10, 2025 Susan Cottrell signed an Op Ed in the Seattle Times about the then upcoming 2025 election to vote for 3 new Coop Board directors.

I could not access the text via the Seattle Times (reserved to susbscribers) and the picture reproduced in the REI-union Facebook page (second below) is not easily readable. At the time she was still hoping the 2 candidates supported by the Union and many members could participate in the vote. Unfortunately they were excluded by the "Nominating Committee" and this exclusion led to the withhold vote victory and the defeat of the Board of Directors. Very temporary defeat since they were able a few months later to coopt a new trio of candidates of their own without submitting them to a vote of the membership! As Susan said later to Dave Jamieson of The Huffington Post: "We don't really have a voice in who gets to be on the board"..." They are cherry picking who they want".

What I don't understand is why the union let this happen? In any case, the possibility of the Board to proceed that way has to be abolished. A key reason for voting withhold against the 2026 corporate slot of candidates. Reading another article by Jamieson, written on May 8, 2025 about the defeat of the Board, he implied that the coopted slot could only serve until the 2026 election but this is not what happened . Maybe he could investigate and report?






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